Do asset price drops foreshadow recessions?

This paper examines the usefulness of asset prices in predicting the beginnings of recessions in the G-7 countries. It finds that equity/house price drops have a substantial marginal effect on the likelihood of a new recession. Increased market uncertainty, which is a second-moment variable associated with equity price changes, is also a useful predictor of new recessions in these countries. These findings are robust to the inclusion of the term spread and oil prices. The new recession forecasting performance of our baseline model is superior to that of a similar model estimated over all recession and expansion periods, highlighting a difference between the probabilities of a new recession versus a continuing recession.